SAN storage

krusty_lab · 03-01-2006, 04:43 PM

I'm going to chose an enterprise storage system, now we have an emc symmetrix 8xxx system, i had some trouble with the support, and the system isn't flexible, every time, if i want to change the configuration, i must call the support, this is very expensive, and not always good.
I'm thinking about ibm ds8100, have sombody experience with this system, can sombody give me a comparison between the ds8100 and the equivalent dmx system (dmx 3 ?!?).
every comment and experience will be apprised.
Sorry for my english
krusty

Dragineez · 03-01-2006, 05:03 PM

Isn't the IBM thing DASD? Just wondering.

If I had to pick a SAN, I know I'd stay away from EMC. Have you had a look at Xiotech? Its an impressive demo if you get to see one running. Its a really impressive demo if you've ever run a different SAN before.

http://www.xiotech.com/

microsoft/linux · 03-01-2006, 05:08 PM

This is slightly off topic, but in the interest of education, what is a SAN? How does one work?

Dragineez · 03-01-2006, 05:11 PM

Its really hardware that consolidates all server storage. Servers require no discs at all. Put in a fibre channel card and plug into the SAN. Benefit is speed, scalability, and reliability.

krusty_lab · 03-01-2006, 05:46 PM

Storage Area Network, is an fiberchannel network where connect the servers trought HBA (Host bus adapters), the operating system see them like scsi controllers.The storage reliase on boxes from IBM,EMC,Hitachi,SUN,HP.... that can have many terabytes of disk space that is assigned to the machines, and they see the disk's like local disk.
Advantages:Speed,reliability, possibility of disaster recovery.
Disadvantages:Cost,pheraps Managment

microsoft/linux · 03-01-2006, 05:51 PM

so it's kind of like Network Storage, but at a much larger scale? Cool, thanks

thorn168 · 03-01-2006, 06:30 PM

Krusty,

I would suggest searching www.networkworld.com and www.infoworld.com. Both of these on-line magazines review SAN products.

sipsipi · 03-01-2006, 10:38 PM

It's only like network storage in that it's external to the machine, but that stops there. It does not run over a network at all, but rather, the HBA's and other equipment mentioned above.

The neat ass thing is you can provision LUNs (Logical Units) as "disks" for diskless machines and I believe you can use volume management to grow and/or shrink the provisioned space.

PLEASE CORRECT ME if i got something wrong here.

krusty_lab · 03-02-2006, 04:43 AM

in large scale SAN's there is a director switch (like a network) ,naturally the machine don't use tcp/ip to comunicate with storage,but use scsi protocol !?
Thanks for all answers
linuxquestions is really one of the best forum's

krusty

Crito · 03-02-2006, 05:10 AM

I'd be happy to take that cr@ppy EMC Symmetrix off your hands.